


Holding Fractured Hands

by cleromancy



Series: Weathering a Stormy Mind [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Coping, Disabled Character, Hope, M/M, Mental Illness, Offscreen Violence, Past Abuse, Past Sexual Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Rape Recovery, Read the warnings, Trauma, offscreen minor character death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-27
Updated: 2014-08-27
Packaged: 2018-02-14 22:42:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2205732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleromancy/pseuds/cleromancy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Missing fingers aren't really a good topic for a reunion.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Holding Fractured Hands

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: past theon/ramsay (started as an increasingly abusive relationship, theon tried to leave him, ramsay then kidnapped him, proceeded to torture and rape him before theon was rescued). offscreen sexual abuse of a child, discussion of child pornography. emotional, sexual, and physical abuse. extralegal execution by a police officer (offscreen via gunshot), themes of mental illness—PTSD, triggers, panic attacks, institutionalization, suicidality, the long and painful and monotonous process of recovery. discussion of medical procedures (including amputation, bloodwork, psychiatric medicine, dental procedures), drugs and alcohol (incl nonconsensual drugging, past arrest for public intoxication). internalized victim blaming and rape/abuse culture. past miscarriage. job loss. disability. divorce. offscreen car crash resulting in death. multiple minor character deaths. mentioned compulsive behavior incl scratching, hair pulling, and skin picking. i don’t think i missed any warnings here but if you notice something as you read that i should add to this list please tell me in the comments section. PLEASE READ WITH CARE. 
> 
> Other notes: Theon and Ramsay’s relationship happens significantly differently, considering that this is an AU setting. Jeyne Poole shows up, but she and Theon don’t already know each other, so there’s an alternate history for them as well (details if you’re curious—she and Sansa were elementary school friends before Jeyne moved away; she’d remember Sansa if she met her but she wouldn’t remember/know Theon). 
> 
> Huge thanks to everyone who encouraged me or read this over, especially Fae, who read it over like six times. To everyone else, I'm sorry that this took so long; it was very draining to write. 
> 
> This is the sequel to [Trials of a Ticking Heart](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1026566) and won't make any sense if you haven't read that first.
> 
> Feedback is appreciated.

It's three years after Robb's wedding and one and a half after Ramsay when you contact Robb again. Your therapist said that you could call him during one of your sessions if that would be easier, but you said you'd rather do it alone.

You regret it when you're at home, staring down at the phone in your hands. After the wedding, Robb called you, often, but you'd been so scared of what he'd have to say—accusatory, or angry, or worst of all, pitying—that you never picked up. Eventually he stopped calling. 

At a support group you had to go to, a speaker said that one of the early steps of an abusive cycle is isolating the victim. Listening, you'd curled in tightly on yourself, realizing that Ramsay hadn't needed to do that to you; you did it all on your own. 

Your hands shake. You think, _I can't do this._ It's been so long. It's too late now. There’s no chance he’ll forgive you. He'll yell at you, or laugh at you, or hang up as soon as he recognizes your voice. _Calling would be pointless,_ you think, and you almost put the phone down, but—no. You have to call. You have to _try_ , because if there's one thing you regret out of everything, it's how things happened with Robb. He won't forgive you, and you can't blame him, but you need to do this. If not to make amends, then for closure. For you and for him. You owe him that much. 

It's that last thought that strengthens your resolve enough to punch in the familiar number. 

The phone rings once, twice. When it rings for the third time a rush of panic hits—realizing you have no idea what you could _possibly say_ —but before you can hang up there’s a click, and a voice speaks.

“Hello?” 

Your mind goes blank. Without entirely meaning to, you croak, “Robb.” 

There’s a sharp intake of breath and another wave of panic crashes over you, but then— “Is this— _Theon_? It’s been—I haven’t—it’s _so_ good to hear from you!” 

That’s. Unexpected. 

Of all the possible reactions you’d considered, genuine delight wasn’t one of them. If you weren’t already sitting down, your knees would have buckled. You feel a lump rising in your throat. 

You take a minute to swallow it down, to scrub your hand over your face. “Likewise,” you say, when it seems like you’re not too choked up to speak anymore. 

Robb starts talking again, words tripping over themselves so fast it’s hard for you to keep up. He keeps asking you questions and rushing into more babble before you can answer. That’s probably a good thing, because you have no idea how to respond to “how have you been.” 

Robb’s chattering is almost faster than you can comprehend. He wants to meet up with you, which startles you so badly that you agree. The rest of the phone call passes in a daze. Before you fully understand what’s happened, Robb’s saying _Can’t wait to see you, bye!_ and you’re left staring blankly at your phone.

The meeting place Robb suggested a coffee place a couple blocks from Asha’s apartment. It’s close enough that you can walk, which is good—you don’t drive anymore, and the bus makes you claustrophobic, and it’d be humiliating to ask Asha for a ride. You’re meeting him a half hour from now at two thirty; that’s also good, because you don’t do well in the dark. 

Even still, the thought of meeting up with Robb sends you into a spiral of panic that makes you go rummaging frantically through your pill bottles. You’re still on medication, which doesn’t seem likely to change. Daily, you take Lamictal, Abilify, Wellbutrin SR, Trazodone to help you sleep, Prazosin for the nightmares, and then Asha makes you take a multivitamin because it makes her feel less helpless when she deals with you. Now you’re searching for the Ativan they give you for the panic attacks. You don't take it much, because sometimes—not often—Ramsay would drug you, because he liked how terrified you were to be helpless in your own body. It’s bullshit that he still sometimes makes you feel that way, even though he’s long since dead. 

The Ativan was in the back of the cabinet. You take half of a pill. It barely takes the edge off the panic, but it also doesn’t weigh down your limbs or dull your mind so you can barely understand what’s happening, which would only make you panic more. 

You force yourself not to think as you walk out the door. Given half the chance, you’d talk yourself out of it. If you did, you’d never forgive yourself for fucking up your second chance. 

*

The coffee place is brightly lit, clean, and most importantly, uncrowded. You order herbal tea, avoiding the barista’s eyes. You don’t like tea and you never have, but you don’t drink caffeine anymore—you’re shaky enough as it is—and the tea will give you something to do while you wait for Robb.

Robb not being there yet means you have to choose where to sit. It makes irrational panic squirm in your stomach—sometimes even tiny choices like this are absurdly difficult—so you close your eyes and breathe deep, trying to figure out what would freak you out _least._ It’d probably be good to sit somewhere where you can see the door. And you want to be able to see the whole shop, the wide open space of it. That narrows down the choices enough that you can pick a booth on the far side. 

You slide in and blow on your tea to cool it. A small, irrational part of you is worried Robb won’t recognize you. You know, objectively, that you don’t look _that_ different. You’re more gaunt now, but you aren’t dangerously malnourished anymore. You have a thousand new scars, but the ones on your face are subtle enough to miss, and it’s cool enough out to wear long sleeves. When Ramsay was starving you, your hair fell out, but it’s grown back in now, even if it’s lighter and more brittle than before. You run a shaking hand through it. No stray hairs fall out when you do; somehow, that’s the most reassuring thing that’s happened all day. 

Every time the door jingles, you flinch. You keep looking over and it keeps not being Robb. The initial spikes of anxiety only dies down slightly when it turns out to be some middle-aged woman with a briefcase or a cluster of teenagers. You can’t stop yourself from checking the time on your phone over and over, cringing when you see _2:15_ , _2:18_ , _2:22_ , _2:24_... You wind up buying another cup of tea just to pass the time. You don’t drink it, just zone out, watching the steam curl up towards the ceiling, and try not to fixate on the door. 

You’re just thinking you don’t know how much longer you can take freaking out every time the door opens when it jingles again. This time when you look, it _is_ Robb, bright hair catching the afternoon sunlight on his way in. He spots you immediately and beams, rushing straight to your table. 

“Sorry I’m late,” Robb says. There’s a grey streak in his curls and dog hair on his shirt. “Were you waiting long?” 

“You’re five minutes early,” you say, bemused.“Go get your coffee.” 

“Yeah, I will, in a minute,” Robb says. “I just wanted to say hi, I—God, how are you, it’s been years!” 

“I’ve been okay,” trips off of your tongue automatically. “You?” 

“Yeah,” says Robb. “Yeah, I—yeah, it’s a long story. You were right, I should go grab some coffee. Is your—do you want a refill?” 

“I just ordered this,” you say. “But thanks.” 

Robb grins at you and heads off to the counter. Dazed, you watch him go. 

By the time Robb gets back with his milkshake masquerading as coffee, your tea is finally cool enough to drink. Three years ago, you would’ve abandoned it to steal from Robb’s sugary monstrosity. Instead, you sip your tea, holding it almost protectively in front of your face, watching Robb slurp. When Robb puts down his cup, he has whipped cream on his upper lip. 

“You’ve got a little,” you tell him, gesturing. 

Sheepishly, Robb wipes his hand across his face. That’s when you notice he’s not wearing a wedding ring, not even a tan line left on his finger. 

Robb notices you looking. He sets his drink down with a rueful little smile-wince. “We finalized it six months ago,” he says. “We were separated before then, but. Yeah.” 

“Was it—” you stop, bite your lip with your new, fake teeth. 

You’ve forgotten a lot of the ‘speech’ you made on Robb’s wedding night, mostly because you were so drunk you barely knew what you were saying. You remember telling Robb you were in love with him in front of two hundred people. You remember Jeyne, beautiful in the seat of honor, chugging champagne while you slurred into the microphone. You wonder if Robb ever told Jeyne that you kissed him. You hope not. Jeyne was always nicer to you than you deserved. 

You don’t know how to ask if it was your fault, but Robb seems to hear the question anyway. 

“There were a lot of reasons for the—for the divorce,” Robb says, rubbing at the base of his ring finger. “The thing with you was _a_ reason, but not the biggest one.” 

Before you can ask, Robb says, “We, uh, we lost a baby,” and then lets out a short, disbelieving laugh. “Lost—it sounds like we just, misplaced it, instead of—well.” 

“Miscarriage, or…?” 

Robb nods. “Middle of the second trimester.” 

You hiss out the breath you were holding through your teeth. 

“Yeah,” says Robb. “It was the umbilical cord, it—” He cuts off, starting to look sick.

“Hey,” you say quietly. “We don’t have to talk about it.” 

Slumping, Robb looks down on the table. “Yeah.”

You were eighteen when Ned Stark was killed in a car crash. He was driving Bran to his Scouts meeting when some rich little bastard in a Hummer ran a red light and slammed directly into Ned’s Volvo on the driver side door. The kid was fine, but Bran’s spine and pelvis were broken and Ned’s ribcage was pulverized. 

You were at the Starks’ when they got the call. Sansa answered the phone and handed it to Mrs. Stark, who answered briskly. Then, as the policeman on the other end spoke, Mrs. Stark sank slowly into one of the kitchen chairs, the color draining from her face. When she hung up the phone, Sansa asked what happened, and when Mrs. Stark spoke, her voice was soft and distant.

The details go fuzzy after that. Bran was in the hospital. Ned was in the morgue. Everyone was crying, all except for you. What you remember most was the helplessness. Robb had his head buried in your shoulder, muffling his sobs, and you kept thinking, _I don’t know what to do._

There’s nothing _to_ do. Not about dead fathers, not about dead children. Knowing that doesn’t make you feel any less helpless. 

You’re struck thinking of Jeyne again. You remember the way she used to smile at Robb, soft and warm and devoted. You never would have thought they’d get divorced, but then Jeyne probably never would have thought she’d lose her baby and then her husband. _The thing with you was_ a _reason, but not the biggest one,_ Robb said. You wonder if Jeyne would say the same. 

“Enough about me,” Robb says suddenly, forcefully upbeat. “What have you been up to?” 

The question startles you into a laugh, a black, shriveled little thing that sounds mostly like a cough. “Nothing worth talking about.” 

“Nothing?” Robb asks. 

_I got myself kidnapped, went to the psych ward, and currently depend on my sister for survival._ You wonder what would happen if you said so.

Instead, you shrug, looking down at the table. 

“Well,” Robb says, and stops, and sips his coffee. 

You wrap your hands around your mug of tea. The heat leeches from the cup into your hands, soothing the aching joints in your remaining fingers. 

Robb’s eyes flick down to your absent pinkie. “What—?” 

“Frostbite,” you lie, taking your hand off of the table and out of sight. 

“Oh,” says Robb. “Sorry.”

*

You've seen a lot of doctors over the past year and a half. When the cops found you chained up in Ramsay's basement you'd been so malnourished that they rushed you to the hospital, where they had to feed you through an IV. They had to re-break and re-set your broken fingers and toes, although they had to amputate your shattered pinkie. They did a partial replacement of your right knee and put in fake teeth to replace the broken and absent ones. They ran blood tests after hearing about how Ramsay'd drugged you, had used all kinds of rusty metal to hurt you, had fucked you bare and dry; the doctors gave you some shots and told you that you were lucky when the STI tests came up negative. 

You had appointments with a physical therapist, a nutritionist, a psychiatrist, and a psychologist, plus regular physicals with your GP. Asha pulled some strings and got you on her insurance, since Ramsay made you quit your job even before he kidnapped you, and paid for your medical bills. She made sure you kept your appointments, which helped, since all you wanted to do at the time was stay in bed. 

Three months after they got you out, Asha found you in your room, holding two razor blades loosely in your hands. She took them from you, uncharacteristically gently, and called your psychologist. She immediately told Asha to take you to the emergency room. From there, you spent the next month in the inpatient program for suicidals. 

You used to be terrified of hospitalization. You used to think, anytime Robb dragged you into the hospital when your father got careless, that they’d somehow _know_ how fucked up you were and never let you leave. That stopped being quite so scary after being chained up in Ramsay’s basement for a month.

Asha visited you every day, brought you books, changes of clothes, a CD player since iPods weren't allowed. She sat with you, even though you never said much. Asha called it “sibling bonding time, or some shit,” and acted like everything was normal. You’ll never know how to thank her for that.

Other than that, it’s hard to remember much about the first few months after they found you. You remember numbness, disassociation, days when you couldn’t really believe you weren’t still with Ramsay, that he wasn’t going to come back. 

You still find it sort of hard to believe that he’s dead, even though you heard it happen. One of the cops who found you, an enormous blonde woman with a face like a shovel, told you that Ramsay was shot resisting arrest. You didn’t tell her that you remembered her partner, stone-faced, leaving the basement after seeing you, remembered the absolute silence from upstairs before the crack of a gunshot. 

You didn’t register it then. A part of you didn’t believe Ramsay _could_ be killed. Even now you feel empty when you think about his death. Mostly you’re just relieved you didn’t have to testify against him. 

*

Suddenly Robb laughs. “This is—bizarre,” he says. “Isn’t it? We used to—talking used to be so easy with us. Now I can’t string two words together.” 

“A lot has changed,” you say, and regret it. 

But Robb’s setting down his cup, looking thoughtful. “Has it, though?” he says. “You’re still Theon, and I’m still me. You’re still the guy who, who made me crash my bike into the lake, who got me drunk for the first time—” 

“I don’t drink anymore,” you say flatly.

Robb blinks for a second, surprised, but then he shakes his head. “That doesn’t mean you’re not that guy, Theon,” he says. “You’re always gonna be that guy, no matter what happens.” 

_You don’t know that,_ you think, staring down at the table. _You don’t know anything._

After Ramsay chained you up, he started calling you _Reek._ He made you answer to it, made you refer to yourself as Reek. He said it was because you stank, because you were disgusting, pathetic. He said that you didn’t deserve the name Theon. Sometimes you started to wonder if you really _were_ Reek, not Theon, in the long periods where he left you alone in the darkness. 

The only thing that reminded you was the way Ramsay looked when he called you Reek. You knew that expression; he was turned on. You were no stranger to playing pretend for someone else’s sexual gratification. By then, the most practice you’d had at that was with Ramsay himself.

But you don’t want to think about Ramsay, so you think about Robb, these past three years. He’s not the same person, either, no matter how much he’d like to think he is. For one thing, he should be out of med school. 

“Hey,” you say. “You graduated by now, right? You’re a doctor?” 

Robb coughs. “I _was_.” 

Frowning, you tilt your head. 

Robb pushes his empty cup away from him. “When things were going bad with Jeyne—” he sighs. “I didn’t sleep. I couldn’t focus on anything. I was late to work a lot. They wanted to cut me some slack because they knew what happened, but. I—” 

He cuts off with a laugh and a shake of his head. 

“What?” you ask.

“I got arrested,” he says, and your heart stops. “It was only a matter of time. I was picking fights in bars for a while before then.” 

You’re staring at him. “You got _arrested_?” 

“Um, public intoxication,” Robb says. “Drunk and disorderly. They held me in a cell overnight and…” He trails off.

Your mind is reeling. Robb “Most Likely to Succeed” Stark, arrested. You can’t do anything but stare, and Robb starts to turn red. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” Robb says, hiding his face in his hands. “I know you never thought I’d do anything like that. You always thought I knew what I was doing.” 

“You _did_ ,” you say. “Straight As, president of student council, top fifth percent of your class, med school—” 

“Divorcee, disturber of the peace, unemployed and living with my mother at twenty-seven,” Robb counters.

“Huh,” you say, which doesn’t adequately cover exactly how shocked you are.

“Yeah,” Robb says. “Everyone always thought I had everything under control. It’s a miracle I fooled you all for that long.” 

All you can think of that is _huh_ again, which you don’t want to say, so you’re quiet for a minute, until you realize something. 

“Robb,” you say. “Did your mom have to bail you out?” 

Robb, somehow, turns even redder. For the first time in a long while, you’re genuinely laughing. 

“Shut up,” Robb whines, covering his face again, which only makes you laugh harder.

After that, it gets easier. You don’t talk about Ramsay and Robb doesn’t talk about Jeyne, but you tell Robb about your job—mostly because you want to see the look on his face when you say you’re a trash collector. You don’t tell him that Asha’s friend got you the job, or that you took it because of the minimal interaction with people, or that it’s one of the few jobs you can _do_ these days after how bad Ramsay fucked you over. You _do_ tell him about the weird shit people throw away, and about the weird shit the people you work with do, and in no time at all Robb’s laughing so hard he snorts whipped cream up his nose. 

Robb catches you up on his siblings. Jon’s an EMT, which Robb seems bizarrely jealous of. Sansa’s an intern at an interior design company, and she and her wife have a daughter and a second kid on the way, and in _that_ case, you can see why Robb’s jealous. Arya, who’s apparently covered in tattoos, dropped out of college to go to trade school to be a mechanic, which seems to make her a lot happier. Bran’s in college, majoring in Computer Science and minoring in Creative Writing. Rickon’s still in high school, but keeps trying to convince Mrs. Stark to let him drop out. 

Robb keeps noticeably quiet about what _he’s_ up to these days, so you don’t ask. You wonder if he’s as ashamed to live with his mother as you are to live with Asha. You wonder if he’s looking for a job. Maybe he’s not even able to work—maybe he can’t handle it right now like you couldn’t after Ramsay. It’s a strange thing to wonder. Robb always had his shit together. Or, you suppose, he seemed to. 

Both you and Robb have finished your drinks for a good half hour before Robb, strangely shy, invites you back to the Starks’. You agree without thinking, and spend the entire car ride trying not to think about it. Instead, you focus on the conversation with Robb with feverish determination. 

Rolling up to the Stark house is surreal. You studiously avoided the place for three years, avoided even thinking about it. It looks exactly like you remember it, and for some reason that makes you have to swallow a lump in your throat. 

At the door, a small swarm of dogs assaults you. Fewer than there used to be—only Grey Wind, old and fat and wheezy, Shaggydog, his entire chin gone grey, and another dog you don’t recognize, some kind of collie mix that somehow looks exactly like Mrs. Stark. 

As soon as Grey Wind and Shaggydog see you, they’re on you, barking their heads off, wagging not just their tails but their whole butts, and sniffing you everywhere. They jostle each other impatiently, trying to shove their faces into your hands. Grey Wind keeps jumping up and then remembering that he’s not allowed. Shaggy can’t seem to decide whether he wants to lean his big dog body against you or turn around in excited circles. The collie seems to think that you must be exciting, since the other dogs are losing their shit, and keeps running around you and barking. 

Robb’s saying, “Hi. Hi. Hi dogs. Hi, you goofy mutts. Hi,” and other nonsense to the dogs. Before long, the collie abandons you to try and kiss Robb’s face. That makes Grey Wind stop barking at you briefly to inspect Robb, before skidding back over and barking at you some more.

When the cacophony dies down a little, you straighten up and scratch behind Shaggydog’s ear, giving Robb a questioning look. Robb smiles at you and walks into the kitchen, so you follow him. Grey Wind, Shaggydog, and the collie follow you. 

Rickon’s sitting at the kitchen table, hunched over textbooks and a mess of papers and folders. His hair is shaggy and tangled. He’s got the beginnings of a ratty ginger moustache growing, which makes you grin. Shaggy trots over to him and curls up under the table by his feet. The collie joins him, but Grey Wind hovers between you and Robb. 

“Hey, squirt,” calls Robb. 

“Hey, old man,” says Rickon without looking up. 

Robb crosses the room and tousles Rickon’s hair. Rickon bats Robb’s hand away, and then looks up and sees you. 

“Theon!” Rickon says, hopping up from the table. He’s shot up over the past three years.

“Holy shit,” you say. “You’re huge. Robb, what’ve you been feeding this guy?” 

“Synthetic growth hormones,” says Robb. “Radioactive proteins, steroid-injected meat, that sort of thing.” 

Rickon rocks up onto his tiptoes. “You’re just mad because I’m gonna be taller than you.” 

“You wish,” says Robb, jabbing Rickon in the side. 

Rickon giggle-yelps, doubling over, and Robb pokes him again in the ticklish spots, and again until Rickon tries to grab Robb’s hands. He misses, and Robb weaves through Rickon’s flailing to bop him on the nose. 

“No fair,” says Rickon, pulling a face at you. You shrug at him, smiling ruefully.

“Do your homework,” says Robb.

“Get a job,” says Rickon.

Robb rolls his eyes and pushes Rickon gently back into the chair, before grinning at you and nodding towards the stairs. 

The route to Robb’s room is easy and familiar; your feet take you there on autopilot. Robb pushes open the door and you sit on the end of his bed without thinking. Robb kicks off his Nikes and joins you on the bed, sitting crosslegged near the headrest. 

Grey Wind finally makes it to the room after that, panting slightly from the arduous trip up the stairs. He waits pointedly at the edge of the bed, fixing Robb with an expectant look. You raise an eyebrow as Robb stands, walks over, and lifts Grey Wind up onto the bed.

“Wow,” you say as Grey Wind happily settles down next to you, panting wheezily. “I didn’t think you could get any more whipped by that dog, and somehow...” 

“He’s old, what do you want,” says Robb with absolutely no shame, resuming his place at the headrest. 

You rest your hand on Grey Wind’s back, letting your fingers sink into his soft fur. Robb reaches out as well, scritches absently behind Grey Wind’s ear for a moment. He pets down Grey Wind’s back for a minute until he reaches your hand, resting between Grey Wind’s shoulderblades. 

Moving very slowly, Robb takes your mutilated hand in his, turning it over. You let him, staring down at his long, blunt fingers around your too-thin ones. 

“What really happened?” Robb asks quietly. 

“I…” It’s never gotten easier to tell this story, no matter how many group therapy meetings your doctors make you go to. 

The first and last time you told it in its entirety was to Jeyne Poole. You met her when you were waiting outside for group therapy to start. You were smoking a cigarette with your back to the wall, thinking about how much you _didn’t_ want to go inside, and she came over and bummed a smoke. She admitted she didn’t want to go either, so the both of you played hookie. You went to a Barnes  & Noble together, even though you weren’t supposed to see other members outside of group. She bought you a copy of _Ariel_ by Sylvia Plath and told you candidly about the man who fostered her after her parents died, who raped her from age eleven to sixteen and made her take pictures naked and touching herself. She said he sold the pictures. She laughed as she told you that he gave her a cut of the money her child pornography took in. She told you she spent it going to the movies, because the movie theater could make her forget that she was alive.

You didn’t decide to tell her what happened to you; the words bubbled out of you like foam from a science fair volcano. Talking made you go into a kind of trance where it didn’t feel like you were the one speaking. You talked and talked and talked and talked until you ran out of words, and after you were done you had no idea how much time had passed. 

You felt weird afterwards, so you bought Jeyne Poole a collection of _Grimm’s Fairy Tales_. You picked it because it was made to look old and leather-bound, and the edges of the pages were painted gold. You also figured Jeyne Poole was type to prefer the version of Cinderella where the stepsisters cut their toes off. 

You kind of wish you had a book to give to Robb. 

Instead you avoid his eyes and say, finally, “I met a guy.” 

You don’t really know how to go from there, how to explain the disaster that was Ramsay, but Robb seems to fill in the blanks anyway, his eyes going huge. 

“You—” he starts, worry all over his face. “Are you—you’re not still with him, are you?” 

“He’s dead,” you say, distantly, and Robb deflates. 

“I’m sorry,” Robb says, and then, hurriedly, “Not—not that he’s dead. But that it happened.” 

You shrug. “I know how to pick ‘em.” 

“Don’t say that,” Robb says, turning your hand over in his to thread your fingers together. “You couldn’t have known.” 

You could have. Or you could have listened to Asha when she said he was bad news. You could have never kissed Robb in the first place. But you did, and even now, in Robb’s childhood home with Robb holding your hand, you’re stuck with the fact that you _didn’t_ know. 

*

You met Ramsay Bolton at a club on a Wednesday night in early spring. You were alone and he bought you a drink. You flirted with him. You remember thinking he seemed awkward; shy. His eyes lit up when you told him you liked it rough. 

It wasn’t a tipoff. You’ve fucked plenty of perfectly nice sadists. 

Ramsay wasn’t _just_ a sadist. He took up space in your life effortlessly and greedily until there was no room for anything but him. You made it easy: you were lonely and miserable and wanted to believe that someone loved you. 

Ramsay didn’t want to love you. He wanted to own you.

It’s hard to tell, thinking back, how much with him was consensual. Everything after you tried to leave him, after he chained you up in his basement—that’s easier to say it’s not your fault.

The sex started spiralling out of control around when he first hit you outside of the bedroom. It was small things at first. They always ask why people don’t leave abusive relationships. The truth is, it gets bad so slowly that you don’t even notice, and by that point you’re utterly convinced that you deserve it. 

He laughed about how delicate you were when you got upset by anything he did. He would tie you up and then leave you alone for hours. He started telling you that he was being kinder than you deserved when he took his knives to your chest. 

Then he stopped listening to _no_. At first he’d try to convince you that when you said ‘stop,’ what you actually meant was ‘keep going.’ Still later, he ignored _no_ and _stop_ altogether. Sometimes when he was fucking you, you felt as though you were drifting out of your body; each time, it took you longer and longer to get back in your head afterwards. 

You didn’t realize until your therapist spelled it out for you that he’d been raping you long before he kidnapped you. You didn’t realize it was rape, those times you were scared he’d hurt you if you didn’t let him take what he wanted. Those times you thought he’d leave you if you didn’t. Those times that you said _stop_ and he kept going. When you went to the support groups, there were mantras—coercive consent is not consent. Silence is not consent. Consent once is not consent for future acts. 

Jeyne Poole said that you didn’t think it counted as rape because it happened to you. 

But for some reason, you can’t forget that for a while, way back at the beginning, it was brilliant. No matter how many times Ramsay raped you, there were also times when it was completely consensual. Remembering that sometimes makes you feel worse than remembering the times he raped you. 

*

“I kissed you back, you know,” Robb says suddenly. He lets go of your hand, leaving it cold. 

You take your hand back and put it on Grey Wind’s head. “Robb?” 

“I don’t know if you remember,” Robb says. “That night. My bachelor party. I kissed you back.” 

“I’m sorry,” you say.

“Sorry?” Robb asks. “I told you, I kissed you b—” 

“No,” you say, running your other hand through your hair. “The speech. The—yes, kissing you. I shouldn’t have kissed you. You were getting married.” 

“I tried to call you,” Robb says. “And I came by your apartment and your sister always said you weren’t there. I thought you never wanted to see me again.” 

“I,” you say hoarsely. “I didn’t want you to—it doesn’t excuse anything, but I…if you were angry, or pitying me...I didn’t—I couldn’t—” 

“Hey,” Robb says quietly, suddenly concerned. 

You wave him off, covering your face with your hand. Grey Wind wuffles quietly and puts his head in your lap. You close your eyes and focus on breathing, stroking Grey Wind’s soft head. 

When your breathing is back under control, you put the hand that was covering your face in your lap, and look up slowly and meet Robb’s eyes.

“I missed you,” Robb whispers then. “I didn’t know how much I would miss you until you were gone. You were always there, and then suddenly you weren’t. I didn’t know what to do.”

“I’m sorry,” you say. 

“I would have forgiven you,” Robb says. “I mean—I do forgive you. For the wedding. I don’t need to forgive you for kissing me. But you _left_ ,” he says helplessly. “I couldn’t do anything, and I _tried._ ” 

You’ve wanted to apologize to Robb for three years. You never thought he’d listen to you long enough for an apology, let alone forgive you. You thought he’d shout, or laugh at you, or throw a punch. It doesn’t feel good or right to have his forgiveness. You don’t want his forgiveness. You want him to have never met you, to have never had to deal with your bullshit.

“I’m—” you start. 

“No,” Robb says. “Don’t apologize again. You don’t have to apologize again.”

You almost apologize for apologizing. You swallow it down. “I don’t know what to say.” 

“You don’t have to know,” says Robb. “Just… tell me you’re not going to disappear on me again. Please.” 

You don’t want to promise that. You don’t want to do that to him. “You were better off without me, Robb,” you say quietly. 

Robb shakes his head. “Theon,” he says. “Theon, you’re my best friend. Theon—” 

He holds out his hand, showing you the scar on his palm. The scar on Robb’s hand is a much cleaner line than the matching one on yours. 

“This doesn’t just go away,” Robb says. 

Suddenly, you’re exhausted. “Maybe it should.”

“No,” says Robb. “Please—” 

“I want to go home,” you say. The panic on Robb’s face makes you amend yourself. “I’ll call you, Robb. I promise, I’ll call you. But I want to go home right now.” 

“I—okay,” Robb says. “Okay.” 

You give Grey Wind one last pat and gently move his head off of your lap. Robb leads you down to the driveway in silence, casting you occasional worried looks, which you pretend not to notice. 

After he’s been driving maybe two minutes, Robb speaks up. 

“Can I say something?” he asks.

Exhaling, you look out the window. The leaves are starting to change color, and the long, winding road up to the Stark house is surrounded by a sunset of trees. 

“Yeah,” you say finally. 

“You always thought you were this horrible influence on me,” Robb says. “You thought you were holding me back, or something, I don’t know. But I managed to fuck up my life pretty damn badly without you, so… just think about that. Please.” 

For a while, you keep looking out the window, watching the forest starting to give way to suburbs. “Okay,” you say eventually.

“Okay,” says Robb. 

The rest of the drive is quiet, not even the radio on, up until Robb pulls up to your and Asha’s apartment complex. You have your hand on the door when Robb says, “Theon, wait.” 

You stop, and slowly look over to Robb. 

“Just,” Robb says. He drops his hands from the wheel into his lap, avoiding your eyes. “Did you miss me? At all?” 

“Yes,” you say, surprised. “Of course.” 

“Okay,” Robb says. “Okay.” 

*

Sometimes you miss Ramsay. 

It sounds fucked up. It _is_ fucked up. The first time you felt that way you called your therapist’s cellphone in a panic. 

You don’t miss the fear, the manipulation, the abuse, the torture, the rape. You miss the person you thought he was, the way he filled up the emptiness in your life. It’s still fucked up. You still hate it. You still want to claw at yourself like you could physically rip the feeling out. 

Your therapist tells you it’s common for victims to miss their abusers, even when they know full well that they were monsters. She says it isn’t your fault. It’s difficult to believe her. Impossible, sometimes. 

Sometimes your head won’t shut up about him. Wondering what it would have been like if he was really the person he seemed like at first. Just some weird, disconnected guy who wanted you with an all-consuming intensity. 

The anxiety, panic attacks, the flashbacks, the disassociation, the nightmares, your amputated finger, the chronic pain from the bones he broke, all the time you’ve lost piecing yourself back together. Out of all the things you’re still dealing with because of him… missing him is what you hate him for the most. 

*

Asha’s not home yet when you come in. You’re glad. You don’t want to talk to her. You don’t want to talk to anyone. 

You faceplant on your bed without taking your shoes off. You lie face down and think about how much being at the Stark house felt like being home. You hate it. It would have been so much easier if Robb rejected you. It would have sucked, but you were prepared for it. You weren’t prepared for forgiveness. You wish you’d never called him. 

Sleep catches hold of you and doesn’t release you for several hours. It’s seven PM when you wake up, disoriented and muggy. You stumble to the kitchen, startling hard when you see Asha sitting at the table with an issue of _Motorcyclist_. She pretends not to notice you flinching. She’s good like that. 

There’s nothing in the fridge. Or at least nothing that wouldn’t be way too much of a hassle to a make. But Asha’ll get on your ass if you don’t eat something, and that would be even more of a hassle. You wind up pouring yourself a bowl of Lucky Charms, which you debate taking it back to your room. Chances are that Asha won’t try to talk to you though, so you sit down at the table.

You don’t live with Asha because you can’t afford to live on your own. You can; they pay garbage men well, because no one who doesn’t get an ironic kick out of being a literal garbage man wants to do it. You live with Asha because you’re terrified of strangers, because the the idea of living alone sends you into fits of shaking while you try to tear off your skin and rip your hair out. 

Asha always says she could use help with rent, but you both know she doesn’t need the money. She actually lets you pay rent now, but she won’t let you pay her back for anything. Not rent for the months when you couldn’t work, not for your medical bills, not even for the gas she used shepherding you back and forth to appointments. You resented it for a long time. Now you realize Asha doesn’t do it as a fucked up power display or something; she does it because she’s emotionally constipated and doesn’t know how else to deal with what happened to you. 

You first moved in with Asha when you were sixteen. She was eighteen and your father was back in prison. Asha said it then, too—that she could use help with rent. A month later, she laughed in your face when you tried to give her a check. She told you to go buy a bike. She didn’t let you start paying rent until you graduated high school. 

At the time, it made you bristle. You didn’t want to live with Asha as it was, but you couldn’t afford to live on your own working part-time at a minimum wage job, and you weren’t about to ask the Starks. At the end of the day it was Asha, foster care, or the streets. You spent a night in a train station once and that wasn’t an experience you cared to repeat, and if you wanted to get shuffled into the foster system you would’ve reported your father long before. So you were stuck with Asha, and you resented it, resented _her._

As far as you knew, she let you stay at her place because she felt some kind of distant obligation to you. She didn’t go out of her way to spend time with you, never went in your room, barely talked to you at all. Most of the time when she did talk with you, she was making fun of you. You didn’t realize for the longest time that it was because she had no idea how to act around you. Somehow it never occurred to you that Asha could be even worse than you at showing that she gives a shit. 

You still don’t know to what extent she gives a shit. After everything that’s happened, though, you think you have a better idea. 

Right now there’s something on your mind, something that you’re certain Asha won’t care about. Something possesses you to tell her anyway. 

“Grey Wind is still alive,” you say.

Asha looks up from her magazine, one eyebrow raised.

“Robb’s dog,” you clarify. “He’s still alive.” 

Asha looks at you searchingly. You shrug, looking back down at your Lucky Charms. It’s quiet for a while, and then Asha speaks. 

“You ever think about getting a dog?” she asks.

You blink. 

“Friend of mine works with ‘em,” Asha says. “There’s some good dogs that need homes.” 

“I…” you start, still blinking rapidly. “Work—” 

“Dog daycare,” she says. 

You snort. “I’m not getting a dog so it can spend most of its time in daycare.”

“You work six hour shifts four days a week,” Asha says. “The rest of the time you’re home.” 

“I can’t take care of a dog,” you say. 

“Yeah, you can,” Asha says.

“Look,” you say. “No one in their right mind thinks I should be responsible for another living thing.” 

“Give me one good reason why not,” Asha says. 

You open your mouth, and then close it. You want to argue about doctor’s appointments, about panic attacks, about freakouts and meltdowns, but it would be entirely transparent that you’re looking for excuses. It’s either that or admit you’re afraid, and you’re not about to do either of those things.

Asha shifts up in her chair and gets her wallet out of her back pocket. She pokes through the inner folds, then takes a slightly creased business card between two fingers and passes it to you. It has a drawing of a German Shepherd on the front.

“Think about it,” Asha says. Then she gets up, magazine in hand, and heads back to her room. 

*

When you finish your cereal, you go back to your room and sit on your bed. You take your phone out of your pocket and stare at it, remembering your promise to call Robb. He’s probably hoping you will, you realize uncomfortably. You stare at your phone for another five minutes and then call Jeyne Poole instead. 

The copy of _Ariel_ Jeyne Poole bought you that day at the bookstore sat, unopened, on your bookshelf for two months before you bothered to open it. When you finally did, a scrap of paper with her phone number fluttered out. You don’t know why you called; you weren’t even sure she’d remember you, since she never went back to that support group. As it turned out, she did remember you. She told you that her favorite Grimm fairy tale was _Rapunzel_.

There’s a click on the other end of the line. “Speaking,” says Jeyne Poole.

“Jeyne Poole,” you say. You always call her ‘Jeyne Poole,’ first and last name like one word. You tried calling her just ‘Jeyne’ once and it felt wrong, like calling your mom Alannys. 

“Theon Greyjoy,” says Jeyne Poole. “How are you?” 

“Unnnghhhh.” 

You can hear her smile over the line. “That good, huh?” 

“Uuaaaghhh,” you elaborate, and Jeyne Poole laughs. 

“Do you want me to guess, or are you going to tell me?” 

You don’t really want to talk about it. Jeyne Poole’s good at talking to you about things you should be talking about, but she’s even better at distracting you from things you should be talking about. You’ve done the same for her, when the occasion called for it. The occasions that called for it was usually around three or four AM, but Jeyne Poole doesn’t have a whole lot of other people she trusts enough to talk to, and remembering that always wakes you up enough to listen.

“Do you think I could take care of a dog?” you ask. 

“What kind of dog?” she asks. “I don’t know if a nervous dog would be good for you. Or a high energy dog.” 

“I just meant a dog,” you say. “Just in general. Any kind of dog.” 

“A general dog,” she muses. “The problem with general things is that they turn into specific things.” 

Jeyne Poole never gets any less weird. You used to think she was tweaking, but now you’re pretty sure she’s just weird. “I don’t know what that means, but okay,” you say.

“I think you could,” she says, and it takes you a minute to realize she means ‘take care of a dog’ and not ‘understand what the hell she’s talking about.’ “Not a small dog. They tend to be high-strung. And nothing that’s going to exhaust you. Any kind of dog will need walks. Playtime. How are your energy levels?” 

“The pills are okay now. The Wellbutrin cuts the Abilify brainfog,” you say. “And work’s not too draining, mostly.” 

“I think you could,” Jeyne Poole says again. “You don’t forget. I mean, you don’t forget to do important things. Sometimes you don’t do them, but it’s not because you forgot. You wouldn’t be avoidant about dog things.” 

“I wouldn’t avoid dog things?”

“You wouldn’t _be avoidant_ about them.” 

“Is there a difference?” 

“ _Avoidant_ is a personality disorder.” 

“Did you get a psychology degree when I wasn’t looking?” you ask, smirking. 

She snorts. “I’d die first.” 

“Don’t die, Jeyne Poole.” 

“Get a dog, Theon Greyjoy.” 

She hangs up the phone. Bemused, you look at your own phone, and then, after a minute, curl your four remaining fingers loosely around it. It’s only seven-thirty PM, and this day feels like it’s gone on for a month. You don’t think you’re the same person you were this morning. You wonder what Jeyne Poole would say about that. 

She’d probably just tell you again to get a dog.

You close your eyes and force yourself to breathe deeply. _Get a dog, Theon Greyjoy,_ you think. You lick your lips and, eyes still closed, type in a familiar number and press Call. You bring your phone to your ear and hold your breath until Robb’s voice comes across the line.


End file.
